Last week we had two interesting visitors who each gave talks in the area of tangible computing. (Briefly, tangible computing explores ways of interacting with computers using real-world physical objects; much more info can be found online including at the Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab). FXPAL has done a number of tangible interface projects over the years, including the PostBits project, the Convertible Podium, and others.

In a recent blog post, Vegard Sandvold proposed a taxonomy of search systems based on two dimensions — algorithmic vs. user-powered and information accessibility. The first dimension represents a tradeoff between systems and people in terms of who does the information seeking, and the second one measures the ease of finding information in some search space. His blog post was intended to solicit discussion, and, in that spirit, here is my take on his ideas.

Meredith Ringel Morris, Jeremy Pickens and I are editing a Special Issue of Information Processing & Management on Collaborative Information Seeking. Our goal is to bring together papers that describe explicit (intentional) collaboration during various aspects of online information seeking. In contract to recommendation or collaborative filtering work, we are looking for work that describes small groups of people working toward a common goal.